Used To Be
by lorien829
Summary: Logan's gun is not loaded. Someone else's is. Canon-divergent from 2x08.
1. i, ii, iii

**Used To Be**

_**i. take a breath, take a long look around before you step**_

Logan's feet pound on the cracked concrete as he darts around Danny Boyd's ramshackle house into the alleyway beyond. _These may be $500 shoes, but they don't absorb shock worth a damn._ Veronica had followed the Irish mobster this way, had _followed _the bastard, even after he eyed her up in a way that had made Logan want to hurl himself from the X-Terra and whale the hell out of him.

_If I need someone punched in the face, I'll whistle for ya._

He had been made to stay in the car. Like an errant child. No, he corrects himself… like someone Veronica does not trust, _cannot _trust. The thought is exquisitely painful. It is that thought – that and the look of fear that flashed in her eyes when he broke the lamp in her living room – that keeps him up at night. And it is the fatigue combined with having to watch her and Duncan all moony-faced that makes it even harder than normal to keep up his façade of devil-may-care jack-assery.

It is respect for Veronica, respect and yearning and a sort of desperate need to please her that he'd never admit to _anybody_ that had kept him in the car for as long as he was. But she hasn't come back, and he doesn't know where she is, and he doesn't know what the hell kind of pervert Danny Boyd is, but he was _looking _at Veronica… he'd gotten out of the car with the (empty) gun tucked into the waistband of his pants before he'd even realized what he was doing.

He dodges a line of laundry strung across the alley. He is sort of amazed, in the part of his mind that never seems to turn the hell off, that people still _do _that. A vicious fusillade of barks startles him, causes him to stumble and then swear. But the junkyard dog is chained up, and Logan can carefully avoid its range. His heart is tripping like a jackhammer, and he wonders if the dog has announced his presence. He pauses, balancing lightly on his feet, waiting… There is a set of doors beyond the dog, and there is another alleyway through a dilapidated gate to his left.

He hesitates, unsure which way they have gone. What if she comes around another way, or she needs a quick escape, and he isn't in the car? _He is not in the car_, and he has the keys. She is so tangled up inside his thoughts and inside his soul, if he has one, and he'd been fine the way things were, _fine. _Bashed in headlights and planted drug paraphernalia, notwithstanding. And now, now that he's gotten to see _her_, the beauty and the spark and the vivid light of _her_… can he be blamed for not wanting to let that go? Isn't it normal for him to hate Duncan, just a little? He knows that she is helping him beat this murder rap because she is a good person and it is what she does. He can't quite squelch the simmering desire to somehow win her back, and if not, then getting to be around her, even a small part of her life, is better than nothing at all.

_God. _He sighs. _I am creepy and pathetic._ He begins to edge around the dog, making his way toward the doors, when down the alley, there is a series of smashes, the sound of glass breaking, a _lot_ of glass.

Logan breaks into a run.

* * *

_**ii. 'cause the tide is coming, swallowing the ground,**_

He slides through an open door past the alley gate, careful not to jar it further. He is in a utility hallway, cheap stained linoleum, yellow mop bucket full of dirty water, flickering fluorescent lighting, and the vague odor of piss. He wonders how many diseases he could catch back here. There is another door just a few yards away, and he can hear the clinking of glassware and the murmur of voices. One, in particular, carries, and his heart somersaults into his throat. It is clearly threatening, though the timbre of the voice is falsely cheerful.

"Well, that was fun! But let's not stop there!"

_Let's not stop there? Stop what? Veronica!_ Logan grits his teeth, arrests his forward motion. He doesn't know how many people are in there, if any are armed, where they are… he doesn't know _anything._ But he would bet his sad, sorry life that Veronica was in trouble.

He makes it to the threshold of the bar, still concealed behind the cracked door. He can see the blue and yellow of a flag hanging on the wall. _Wicklow_… it says, and then _cill mhan…_ something unpronounceable and Irish. _The River Stix. _He has heard of this place. There is a choked squeal, almost a sob, and a high-pitched mechanical buzzing ensues. He peers through the door, and sees a man crouched over someone much smaller who is sprawled across the pool table, clearly struggling.

The blood is pounding in his ears, in his head. An almost murderous rage is swelling inside him. The way he felt when his father hit him, when the PCHers were beating the shit out of him on the bridge … this threatens to eclipse all of that. Someone is hurting her; someone is hurting her _because of him_. He is clawing together shreds of a plan, but he knows he is going to go in anyway. He owes her that much, and even that seems precious little in return. He flips open his phone and dials.

"I'm gonna start over here, and then when I hear something resembling the truth, I'll stop."

Logan shoves his way through the door.

"_Hey!"_

* * *

_**iii. and there's no way to tell if we will drown tonight, or we'll be found tonight.**_

The Irish thugs don't believe him. He'd been hoping that a 911 call, the threat of police would be enough deterrent to get him and Veronica out of there. But even as he instructs the dispatcher to find his ankle monitor, even with his implicit threat, _There is blood everywhere,_ there is only laughter as he snaps the phone shut.

_Lads, let's see how much damage we can do in the next two minutes…_

They don't even _care_. It seems the highest form of blasphemy that they don't realize how valuable, how important she is. He ignores the part of him that snidely whispers that he used to (still does?) treat her the same way, and has the gun out before Liam Fitzpatrick can even finish his sentence.

He takes grim pleasure in the suddenly serious, cowed faces of the Fitzpatricks and their cronies. He hopes no one can see that his hand is trembling ever so slightly around the grip.

"I've had a very bad year." His voice is coldly casual. The look in Fitzpatrick's eyes tells him that the truth of his words is readily apparent. _Good_, he thinks. He'd gladly see the bar burnt to ashes and everyone inside it in hell, without one tear shed, as long as she is unharmed. At the same time, he is glad that he can't make eye contact with Veronica.

He waits, struggling to keep his Logan-mask in place. If they push him, if all they hear is the impotent click of an empty gun, then his life… _Veronica's life_… will not be worth a single damn. He forgets to breathe.

Liam blinks first. He releases Veronica, who sucks in air with a grateful, frightened wheeze that causes Logan's chest to ache. She grabs her fallen bag, darts behind him, as she slings him one grateful glance… even that tiny look is enough to send his heart soaring…

He backs toward the door, confidence rising in knowing that she is behind him, that he is between her and those who wish her harm. He turns to go through the door, wants to say something clever and original, but is still scared so witless that he'll probably go with, "Let's get the hell out of here."

She yells part of his name, but it is quickly cut off; there is a blur of movement past him. _Why is she going back in the bar?_ And then, almost simultaneous with her movement, the thundering crack of gunfire. Something collides with his legs, and he is falling. His ears are ringing. There is distant tumult; people are yelling, sentence fragments whirling together in a cacophony of sound.

_Liam! Let's get out of here! The cops! Where's Molly? Get rid of the damn gun! Do you know who that is? God, if you've killed her, we'll all go down for this._

Killed _her?_

The whistling in his ears is almost unbearable, but he struggles to make sense of things. Something is lying across him. He is in something wet, and incongruously, he thinks of the dirty mop water. His head and elbow throb from where they came in contact with the hard floor.

He tries to sit up, and sees Veronica at his feet.

Then he sees all the blood.

**TBC**

**AN: **This should be a short-ish three-shot or so. Canon-divergent from the events in 2x08, "Ahoy Mateys". Fic title and chapter break song lyrics are from the Arrows to Athens song "Used To Be".


	2. iv, v, vi

**Used To Be**

_**iv. come in close. if the current gets us, then it gets us both.**_

It takes him no more than a split second to realize that he has not been hit, that Veronica somehow saw (sensed?) the gun coming up, and got between him and the bullet, that it is her blood all over him, all over the floor. He cradles her head in his lap as he sits up, inadvertently putting his hand in a sticky puddle of it – _her blood_ – and he has to stifle a retch.

Her pulse is rapid and shallow, her mouth partly open, her eyes wide, staring somewhere beyond him.

"Veronica!" His voice is frantic, thready. He doesn't even recognize it. Her eyelashes flutter at her name. Her eyes move erratically; she is straining to focus them. And _finally, _those pain-filled blue orbs lock on to him.

"_Lo-_gan," she breathes with effort.

"Hold on. Hold – hol – just – just, hang in there, Veronica. Okay? Just – just – " He doesn't know what to tell her to do. _Just don't die. Please._ He rips his jacket off, and positions it so that he can press the lining down onto the wound. He is trying not to look at it too closely, but the juncture of her shoulder and neck is a bloody mess, and there are white chips of something that he thinks might be bone. She exhales a keening gasp of air, and he knows he is hurting her. _I always hurt her._

He can hear sirens. He's not sure he's ever heard incoming authorities with quite this much joy before. For him, in that singular moment, where everything is distilled down to fear and adrenaline, the siren equals life. She will live, surely.

_She has to live._

Neptune's finest (the smirk is a knee-jerk reaction at this point, he thinks) burst through the front doors, and secure the room. Most of the bar's occupants have made like trees by this time, and Logan reflects that the guiltiest parties are probably the furthest away.

"Get the EMTs back here! My God. Veronica!" One cop shouts, and Logan looks up at him, briefly tearing his eyes away from the flickers of movement that mean she's alive.

"Deputy Leo," he says dully, unable to infuse the name with the sarcasm he would normally feel that it warranted. _Of course…_

"What happened here?" Logan is still pressing on the wound with all the strength he has. His arms are trembling; pain is lancing through the elbow that took the brunt of his weight in the fall.

"Someone tried to kill me. Apparently, Veronica took exception to it." His throat closes up around the words, and he thinks with a sort of vague horror that he is about to cry. He throws a glance at the deputy again, more to distract himself from impending tears than anything else. Leo looks unmoved, but Logan can see the way his eyes are darting from Veronica back to him.

"That your gun?"

For a hysterical moment, Logan doesn't even know what he's talking about. Then he remembers. The (empty) gun. Dazedly, he glances around until he sees it, discarded next to an empty O'Hara's crate, a red smear behind it, as if it had clattered through a puddle of blood before it came to rest.

"Yes." There is a beat. The EMTs arrive with the gurney, and mostly jostle Logan out of the way. His arms flail toward her reflexively. He knows he needs to give them room to work, but he needs to – dear God – hold her hand or _something_.

Leo is bagging the gun. "It's not loaded," Logan tells him, though he's not sure why. Is he trying to absolve himself? _Don't worry, Deputy, I couldn't have _actually_ hurt anybody, even though I wanted to. Yes, Deputy, I was in fact bluffing… I was trying to save her, and gambled her life away instead. _He wonders how badly he'll compromise the crime scene if he hurls.

Words are swimming in a soupy fog around him: _shock, ricochet, bone fragments, transfusion. _They get her on the gurney impossibly fast; they're rolling her away before he can even process it all, and he is still kneeling in her blood in that germ-infested hallway.

"Wait…" The plea doesn't even carry, but Leo hears him. With a look that eloquently bespeaks the fact that he has _no_ idea why he's doing this, the deputy calls out to one of the EMTs.

"Hal, take 'im with you. He's her boyfriend." Logan doesn't bother to correct him. The paramedic must have dissented, because Leo continued, "Looks like he needs to be seen too, anyway. Besides, she's got no one else but her dad… you remember Sheriff Mars? Logan can call him on the way." Logan reckons he'd rather be set upon by rabid Hollywood bottle-blondes. He knows good and damned well that if there is a cosmic trade-off of Veronica for him, Keith Mars will _not _think he is worth the price. Hell, he _knows_ he isn't worth it. But Leo hooks a strong arm under the one of his that isn't pulsing with pain, and helps him to his feet, nodding towards the retreating gurney and the back end of the ambulance. The street beyond the bar is strobing red. Logan doesn't look back at the puddle of Veronica's blood.

_It should have damn well been mine._

* * *

_**v. so if the waves come, let them take us, as they cover you and me, and they pull us underneath**_

Logan is being treated in the Balboa County Regional ER when Keith Mars arrives. He's been given IV fluids for shock, tested negative for concussion, and had his dislocated elbow snapped back into place. As a result, Veronica's father is already seated in the waiting room, when he wanders back out, arm in a sling so that his hand is crossed beatifically on his chest.

Mr. Mars' face is set like granite, as Logan approaches.

"How's Veronica?"

"What the _hell_ happened?" Keith Mars ignores Logan's question.

"_How's Veronica?"_ It is a chore to keep a smart-ass tone out of his voice. As it is, the question is just the wrong side of polite.

"She's stable for now. They've taken her into surgery. To get the bullet out, and – and remove the splinters of her collarbone." Her father's voice sounds vague, as if he is disinterestedly talking about someone he doesn't know. Logan figures he's doing it to stay sane. _God knows I'm having a hard enough time with it._ "Now, _you_ answer _my _question."

In short, halting sentences, Logan begins to explain, interrupted every so often by a terse question from the PI. Finally, Mr. Mars seems satisfied that he knows everything that Logan knows.

"So, she was in there for you, _because of_ you," he concludes. Logan's eyes slide shut, as a wave of nausea rolls over him. He tries not to see Veronica's blood behind his eyelids, tries not to hear her breathy, weak _Logan_. The ER nurses cleaned him up mostly, but there are still stiff patches of her blood on the knees of his jeans.

"Yes, sir. She wanted – I _asked_ for her help. I – I didn't kill that PCHer, Mr. Mars. She knew – she _knows _that." He wants to bite out his tongue for using the past tense. "She's helping me find out who really did."

"She gets into quite enough trouble all on her own, without you – without your _family…_" Logan flinches as though he's been slapped. Keith stops, and visibly tries to control his temper. "She – somehow, you have wormed your way in to her life, into her heart. She feels – she feels _responsible_ for you for some reason. And you, you won't even do her the courtesy of _trying _to straighten out your life. She _begged_ you to stop the feud with the PCH gang… she cried for two weeks after you two broke up. And now you've got her bailing you out of your messes, and you nearly get her _killed_." Keith's eyes are red, as he watches Logan weather the verbal barrage.

"I went with her, Mr. Mars. I – she made me stay in the car." Even as he says it, he realizes how pathetic it sounds. As if teensy little Veronica Mars could really _make_ him do anything. "We didn't know – we didn't know Danny Boyd would take her to the River Stix. And that – they would – they would figure out who she was. The gun – it was all I had… I figured they wouldn't know it wasn't loaded, that it would be enough to get us out of there." Logan slumps forward in the cracked vinyl chair, as if the weight of his regrets is physically pushing him down. The movement sends a pulling ache through his injured arm.

"And you don't know who took the shot?" Logan flashes a look of irritation at the older man. He has already said as much.

"We were almost through the door. I was turning to leave. Veronica must have looked back and seen… I don't know why she got in front of me…" He thinks of his father, in jail for killing Lilly Kane, of his mother, who was weak, who loved her son, but not more than she loved the next bottle, of his teachers, who wore universal smirks of knowing satisfaction when he lived down to all of their expectations. Only Duncan and Veronica – they are the only ones who have ever seemed to truly care about Logan and who he actually is.

"If you don't know why she got in between you and that – that gun, then you're much stupider than I ever thought you were… and that is saying something."

"She's with Duncan," he mumbles, in what is almost a _non sequitur._

"Don't misunderstand me, Logan. She's her own person, and she cares about you a great deal." The unspoken _God only knows why_ is its own brand of torture. "Even so, I was never sure that I was entirely comfortable with your dating Veronica. You've always been a loose cannon, with more money and brains – and less self-preservation – than any one person had a right to. Veronica comes first for me, always. And frankly, you're dangerous."

Logan remembers what it felt like that night on the bridge, as he stood atop the concrete guardrail and looked over into the dark, sucking water, wondering what had gone through his mother's mind when she'd stood there. He remembers lying crumpled on the warm road surface, surrounded by hostility that he'd brought on himself, feeling the familiar pain as the blows of fists and boots kept coming and coming and coming… Then later, when he found out what his father had done, when he realized that Veronica had called him to help her, and he was _not there_, and she nearly died.

Her father's words feel like those blows, raining down from an implacable Fate. He is _useless_; it is _his _fault; he poisons everything around him.

"I know you blame me for what happened today…" he begins, his voice rasping in his throat like sandpaper.

"Damn straight I do," Mr. Mars says. "Among other things." But there is a war going on in his face. Logan knows he is all too aware of his headstrong daughter's tendency to rush in where angels fear to tread, especially when she thinks she is right… which is always.

"If she…" _dies_. Logan cannot even say it. "You couldn't possibly blame me more than I blame myself."

Keith Mars looks like he might take exception to that pronouncement, but Logan stands to his feet, feeling three times his age, wondering if the hospital pharmacy is still open, and he can fill the prescription for his pain meds. He knows he won't do it, knows even the imagining of Veronica's disapproval would be enough to forestall him, but thinks longingly of the bottle of top-shelf whiskey hidden in his room, with which he could wash down those pills. He would love to sink into a blessed oblivion where he did not see pools of Veronica's blood shimmering in a sickly fluorescent glow, where he did not always, _always_ destroy those whom he loved the very most.

* * *

_**vi. i hope fate will forgive us, for tempting the sea.**_

He is not even out of the waiting area before he is stopped. Duncan Kane comes in, worry stamped across his face, followed closely by Wallace and Mac, tumbling in like flustered puppies. Logan's mouth is moving before his brain can assess the wisdom of such an action.

"So, which girlfriend are you even here to see?" he snarks. Duncan's look eloquently tells him where he can go and what he can do to himself when he gets there.

"Is she okay?" is all he says out loud.

Logan fights the urge to roll his eyes and needle him further. Of _course_, Duncan is going to be the bigger man here. Of _course, _he is going to keep his calm, steady, noble-ass self focused on the bigger picture. Never mind that he's got a comatose former girlfriend that he couldn't be emotionally faithful to even when he was dating her… and she was conscious.

"She's in surgery. The – the bullet shattered her collarbone… must – must have hit a vein too, or something. She was – she was bleeding _so _much, and I – I – " He is rambling almost to himself, with no filter, no _Logan_ coloring his words, nothing but the naked emotion of how much he _cares_. Duncan's stony face makes him realize how it must look to his audience, and he clamps his mouth shut. He'll be damned if he is going to pour out his stupid, malfunctioning heart to these people who don't think he is fit to wipe Veronica's boots.

(_He doesn't even think he is fit to wipe Veronica's boots.)_

"Her dad said that she was stable when she went into surgery. He's sitting over there." He manages to keep his tone much more neutral, as he gestures to where the former sheriff waits.

"Where are you going?" Mac asks, and there is some amount of compassion in her voice. Logan is almost angry at himself for how grateful he is to hear it.

"Fill my prescription," he tells her. "Dislocated my elbow." _Hurts like hell_, he thinks, but does not say. Even his throbbing elbow does not hurt like Veronica's gasping, broken "_Lo-gan_" or the censure in Duncan's eyes. He turns to go, aiming for the hospital directory sign that would send him to the pharmacy.

"Hey man," Wallace catches his good arm, surprising him. Logan pivots to face him, with a sideways glance, as he briefly wonders what exactly Veronica has told Wallace about their relationship. "Our girl's gonna be all right, you know it? She's got more lives than a cat." There is clear bravado in his voice, but Logan appreciates the effort.

"What good is that if Logan uses them all up?" Duncan is bitter, and his answering glower shows that he finds Wallace's inclusion of Logan in the phrase "our girl" to be completely uncalled for.

"_I_ didn't shoot her," Logan retorts gracelessly, stung by Duncan's accusation.

"It's your fault she gets into these situations. You – you can't – you _won't_ stay out of trouble, and then she tries to help – she _has _to help you. I don't know what the hell kind of hold you have on her, but she can't say no…" Duncan is becoming irate, his voice rising in both intensity and volume.

_Ah, there it is, _Logan thinks in satisfaction. He lets his lip curl up in a knowing smirk, shaking his head in unmistakable implication.

"She does have trouble saying no, doesn't she?" Even as he says the (innocent-but-not-really) words, he inwardly cringes. _This is why she has the reputation she does. You gave it to her, forced her to wear it, it got her _raped_ for God's sake; she saved your sorry ass, and you're _still_ dragging her through the mud…_

Duncan mouth goes taut, and Logan can see his fists clench, his temper hanging on by only the flimsiest of threads. Wallace is shaking his head, but still moves almost involuntarily, ready to break up any ensuing altercation. Logan, for his part, feels real nausea begin to swirl in his gut.

"Why don't you just go?" The Kane scion bursts out. "Go home. Nobody wants you here."

Logan thinks of his room. Thinks of the hidden whiskey, his prescription, blessed release. _Do it, _his inner voice hisses. _They all think it of you anyway; you might as well do it._ He could spiral down that dark path, if he chooses; it wouldn't even be difficult. But something in his heart cracks, when he thinks of Veronica, the way her eyes locked on to him in her trauma, _Lo-gan_. She had called for him. Maybe it is only because he was there, but he is going to let _her_ be the one to tell him to go.

"I'm not going anywhere," he tells Duncan stolidly.

He owes her that too.

**TBC**


	3. vii, viii, ix

**Used To Be**

_**vii. i hope they won't forget us, but we cannot go back to the way it used to be**_

Logan has lost track of how long he has been sitting, hunched over in the horribly uncomfortable chair, the armrests of which have a sticky film on them that he is trying not to think about too much. The clock in the waiting room is frozen at 9:24, and his phone battery has died. His medicine causes him to doze for a bit, but it is that fragmented, unrestful sleep that makes one awaken with a dried out mouth and a headache.

He and Duncan – and he and Mr. Mars – studiously ignore each other. Wallace flips nervously through a back issue of Sports Illustrated, and Mac stares off into space, twirling a red strand of hair around her fingers.

When the doctor comes in, Logan is the first to spot him. The noisy scraping of his chair, as he jolts out of it, calls everyone else to attention.

"Mr. Mars," he speaks to Keith, sparing not a glance for the teenagers hanging on his every word. "Veronica is out of surgery. She came through it well. We got the bullet. We are relatively confident that we removed all the bone fragments. Her collarbone needed a couple of screws. She did have to have a transfusion." He seems to be ticking off items in a mental checklist. "She'll be in recovery for another hour, and then we'll let you see her for a bit."

"Can we see her?" The question seems to propel itself out of Duncan's mouth of its own accord.

"That will be up to Veronica and her father," the doctor answers gently.

"If she's up to it," Mr. Mars directs his reply to Duncan. "Thank you, Doctor." Logan is dying to know if he is included in that permission, but he doesn't dare ask. He damns his chair to hellfire as he sits back in it, taking a swig of the now-tepid Sprite with which he washed down his medicine.

Another hour ticks by at an agonizing pace. Duncan wanders off with a mumbled excuse that Logan does not care about at all. He figures Duncan's gone to sneak in to see Meg. _Asshole_, he thinks. The rest of them sit in silence. Time oozes by.

Duncan has only been back for about two minutes – he won't meet anyone's eyes, and this makes Logan's perma-smirk reappear – when the nurse comes out to tell them that Veronica's been moved to a room.

"Mr. Mars," she says. "And… Logan Echolls." Her eyes trip over their faces, waiting for one of them to claim the identity. Logan freezes. He desperately wants to see her, to ascertain with his own eyes that she is okay. But he decidedly does _not_ want to go in there with Keith Mars looking at him with equal parts reproach and loathing. Wallace kicks him in the shin, jerking his head toward the nurse and Veronica's father, with a look that says something like _Get up and go, buttmunch, or are you gonna make me kick your melodramatic ass?_ Logan's eyebrows soar upward in surprise. Who knew Wallace could be so nonverbally expressive? He gets up. The sour look on Duncan's face almost makes it worth it.

He follows the nurse down the corridor, making sure he stays deferentially behind and to the right of Mr. Mars.

"She's going to be very tired," the nurse instructs, as they reach room 1214. "She may not even remember any of this later, but she insisted on seeing you. She was very… persistent."

Their laughter is an unexpected chorus.

"That's our Veronica," Logan says before he can think better of it, the joviality in his voice ringing untrue. He catches Keith's eye, which surveys him suspiciously, and he feels his face flush with heat. Even though he does know her, quite well, he feels like he has lost the right to possess that knowledge.

The hell of it is, he thinks as they enter the room, is that he and Veronica have too damned many 'used to bes'. A long time ago, they used to be friends. Then they used to be mortal enemies; then he used to be her boyfriend… and now – now what the hell are they? He has seen every possible potentiality that he and Veronica can have; he knows beyond theoretically how it feels to have her occupying those different positions in his life.

He loves her. He's never stopped loving her. And he knows which one of those various roles in her life _he _wants. Unfortunately, Veronica has given every indication that she also knows what_ she_ wants. She'd slung back to Duncan on the Relationship Tilt-a-Whirl so fast it made his head spin. And she's certainly not given much indication recently that she thinks very highly of him.

_Oh, you're being a jackass. It must be an even numbered day._

He is nervous as he meets her gaze, yet he somehow feels more buoyant than he has since this whole nightmare started. A smile creeps across his face unbidden, and if Mr. Mars can read what it means, he finds that he doesn't really care. There is hope to cling on to now, even if he is hanging on to it by his fingernails.

She wants to see him. She asked for him. He'll take it.

* * *

_**viii. take it in, take a good look at what it might have been, as we're swept into the water from the shore**_

She looks so pale, so pale, and there is beeping from monitors and an IV drip, and a giant swath of bandages and tape and straps immobilizing her arm and shoulder. The smile melts off of his face as if it had been only an illusion.

_This is his fault_.

Her eyes dance across his face briefly, and the corners of her lips tilt faintly upward. Still he hangs back, allowing her time with her dad first. Mr. Mars doesn't hesitate to approach her bedside, looking as if he wants to hug her, but settling on running his open hand across the top of her head, as gently as if her shining hair is made of spun glass.

"Hi, Daddy," she murmurs in a wobbly little-girl voice that shames Logan in a thousand different ways all at once.

Tears are standing in her father's eyes, and his smile is tender beyond words. Logan feels simultaneously as if he is intruding in something private and incredibly jealous of the relationship she shares with her father. _No wonder she's always seemed stronger than all of the '09ers put together._

"'Hi, Daddy,' she says. Leeching years off my life, and all I get is 'Hi, Daddy.'" He is playing it off well, his smile only a little softer than normal. "Need I remind you how I've sacrificed my hair for you?" He jabs one finger at the crown of his head.

"You cast that up to me all the time," Veronica slurs. "Think you're just in denial 'bout your lousy genetics."

"It was luxurious hair, Veronica. _Luxurious, _I tell you."

Her eyes are sliding shut while she nods.

"Can't will it back into existence, Dad."

"Don't I know it." He rubs a rueful hand over his shiny pate. "Believe me, I've tried." Father and daughter regard each other for a moment.

"I'm – I'm sorry for makin' you worry."

"It would have been helpful if you had come with some sort of disclaimer," Mr. Mars concedes. "But I should be used to it by now, shouldn't I?"

Logan thinks that he may never be used to Veronica putting herself in danger. Almost as if he has shouted into the silence, Mr. Mars chooses that moment to look up at him. Veronica follows his gaze.

"I guess you have some things you need to say…" her father ventures, his tone measured. "I'll wait outside _for a minute_." This last part is for Logan. "Duncan, Wallace, and Mac are here too."

"Mm-kay." She reaches for her father's hand with the one arm she can move, and squeezes.

The look he shoots Logan as he exits is a clear warning, but Logan almost doesn't even hear the door shut behind him. He can see nothing but her.

"Veronica Mars, you are a sight for sore eyes," he says, almost making it through the cliché naturally. It seems terribly, terribly inadequate.

"Why, Logan Echolls!" she drawls in a Southern accent, still being lazy with her consonants. Her eyes are hooded, her face drawn with fatigue and medication and pain. "Watch yourself, ya hear! You might have people thinkin' that you care!"

"Don't!" He steps all over the last few words she says. His own light tone had been a mistake; he can't handle hearing it from her, not when the bloody hallway and her hitching murmur are playing on a loop in his head. "Don't do this – don't play right now. I – I don't think I could take it." What little mirth had managed to make itself known on her face vanishes.

"This is what we do," she points out.

"I thought you were going to die tonight," he says, agony cracking his voice. "I thought I had killed you."

"Don' be silly. You didn't fire that gun…" she pauses, looking at him as if a thought has just occurred to her. "Did you? You were behin' me… but you could've gotten ahold of one of those grassy knoll bullets." She nods sagely at him. " God knows you have enough money to get one."

"You know that's not what I mean. Can you turn off Veronica's Zingers 101 for just a minute, _please_."

"Who're you, and what'd ya do with Logan Echolls? I'll testify that you're not him… he… him," she settles finally, and cocks her head at him inquisitively. "Does'is count as being in my right faculties?"

Logan swears violently under his breath, and some part of Veronica seems to realize that he is serious, that he is quite possibly breaking to pieces in front of her.

"I was doin' _my job_," she says, appearing to take her cue from his somber mien. "I don't blame you. You didn't push me in front of that bullet. I chose t' move." She pauses, considering. "Maybe not the bes' choice I ever made."

"_Why?"_ He has moved to her bedside, has laid his hand atop hers, pretends not to notice the shudder that vibrates up her arm when they touch.

"I – I – I – " she stammers, casting alarmed eyes at their hands, until he moves his with a sigh. _Chemistry was never one of our problems. _"I – I didn't think. I just – I just knew I couldn't lose you."

"But it would be okay if I lost _you_?"

"You know me: perenn'ally selfish V'ronica Mars. I wasn' thinkin' of your feelings _at all_, when I let myself get shot." His lips twitch upward in an involuntary smile, and some of the tension seeps from the room. She is looking at him, a searching one that might normally make him uncomfortable; instead, he just finds himself wondering what she is looking for.

"And here I thought you were devoted to the plight of the common man." He speaks in the almost shy mumble that he just can't seem to get rid of when he is around her.

"When have you ever been a common man?" She smiles hazily at him, and it does funny things to his chest. He is not sure what makes him do it, but he places his fingers back atop hers, and leans as close to her ear as he dares.

"Never. Glad you noticed," he whispers, and is pleased with his front-row seat to her rising blush, even more noticeable in her pallor.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she whispers back.

"Liar." The word trips deliciously off of his tongue. He is so pleased with her reaction to him, and the newborn hope he'd carried into the hospital room with him bolsters him further. He'd been hurt when she'd broken it off; it had never occurred to him to fight for what he wanted – he'd always been given what he wanted. Instead, he'd retreated to his tried-and-true method of rumor-mongering, innuendo, and passive-aggressive potshots. _Such an ass_. He realizes anew how fortunate he is that Veronica would speak to him at all, much less help him with a problem.

He doesn't deserve her, he knows that. But he is going to start proving that at least he isn't a waste of skin, unworthy of the salvation she'd given him.

It is going to be different now, he thinks to himself, straightening up as the door opens. Duncan is going to have a fight on his hands. He pretends not to notice as that very person, along with Wallace and Mac, enters the room.

"I should go," he says, in a tender voice meant only for her. Her innate vitality has helped him to have trouble remembering that she got shot today. Because of him. He waits for the twinge of recrimination. _There it is. _ "You ought to rest." He'd like to touch her again, just to reassure himself that she is still here, but he refrains.

"Thanks, Logan." She is fighting to keep her eyes open, as she smiles at the other three. He claps Duncan on the shoulder, with hearty camaraderie, as he passes. Just to be an ass.

"Don't wear her out, big guy," he calls, a big shit-eating grin plastered across his face. For a brief moment, Duncan looks like he is going to throw a punch. Logan sees him glance at Veronica and force a smile onto his face.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he replies.

* * *

_**ix. because there's no way they can tell us that we can't have more, because we can have more**_

Logan goes home that night, mostly under duress from Wallace and Mr. Mars, and sleeps the coma-like sleep of the drugged, traumatized, and emotionally exhausted. When he wakes up, the sun's angle is high, and he can tell he's slept far longer than he meant to. _Veronica!_ The thought is like a bucket of cold water being poured over his head, but his body has stiffened up during the night, and his elbow is beyond sore. He dry-swallows two pain pills, after fumbling with the childproof cap for a ridiculous amount of time, and then gingerly gets out of bed.

The hot spray of the shower feels incredible, but something about the wet tile (he's not sure what; housekeeping keeps the place pristine) recalls the odor in the dank hallway behind the River Stix. Before he can process what is happening, he is out of the shower, retching into the toilet, his body screaming at the sudden and ignominious movement.

_Damn it! _He thinks of the wasted medication, thinks of Veronica in the hospital, thinks of the look on Duncan's face, her father's face. He remembers his promise to fight for her, remembers the expression she wore that made him hope she still cared. He rinses his mouth out in the sink, allowing himself to feel mildly guilty for what he is about to do to Duncan.

_He doesn't deserve her._

_Neither do you. _The inner rejoinder is immediate.

He gives the shower a take-two, but only stays in the minimum amount of requisite cleaning time. Dressing takes longer than he'd like, and he calls down to the front desk to have a car waiting for him, partly because he can and because he aches all over, but mostly because his damned car is still out in front of Danny Boyd's house. As he climbs into the back seat of the limo, he wonders if the X-terra is still intact. That train of thought leads him step by step through the events of the previous day, until he is once again in that filthy hallway, with Veronica bleeding all over him and gasping his name.

A flash of green catches his eye, and he bangs his knuckles against the divider harder than he means to. After some terse instructions to the driver, he is striding into the Starbucks… at least, he likes to imagine that he is striding; more likely, he is walking like someone who has recently been in a car accident. He orders three coffees, one for Wallace that is just like the one he orders for himself, and a plain black coffee for Mr. Mars, because he figures what else would a private investigator and former Sheriff drink? After an instant of hesitation, in a fit of self-loathing, he also orders Duncan's preferred latté. He is already out the door when he remembers Mac, but figures she can have his, if she is there.

In fact, Mac is there when the limo deposits him at the hospital entrance, but she has a travel mug of something cupped in her hands, and he is ridiculously glad. His head has started pounding so hard, he would have probably given her Duncan's coffee instead, Kane heir be damned.

"How is she doing?" he asks, after he tosses the drink carrier in the nearest garbage can.

"She seems to be hurting more today," Duncan tells him genuinely, despite the clearly suspicious look he'd shot Logan when accepting the proffered hot beverage. Logan tries not to care that they've all seen her today, and he has not.

"The day after is always worse," Logan mutters, without disclosing how he knows that information. "Can I see her?" He momentarily considers the fact that he is not even attempting any kind of subtlety.

"She looked pretty sleepy," Wallace admits, but then adds, "but she asked about you. She'd probably wanna know you're here." Logan does his damnedest to ignore the warm glow that Wallace's comment elicits in him, and does allow himself to enjoy the rapid-fire change of Duncan's mood with the first part of Wallace's statement versus the second.

"May I…?" He addresses the unfinished question to her father, and doesn't even dare glance at Duncan. The sincerity in his voice is bald enough to embarrass him, and he feels his face flush. The surprised sympathy that presents in Mr. Mars' face makes it worse, and by the time he is making his way back to Veronica's room, he feels like he is on fire.

Veronica's eyes are three-quarter-lidded, but she is not asleep when he quietly enters. He is not imagining the way her expression lights up when she sees him, and his heart accelerates into trip-hammer mode.

"There you are," she says softly, and he loves how unguarded she sounds.

"In the flesh," he mumbles back at her, dragging his gaze up to meet hers, as he approaches her bedside.

"I missed you."

Logan has forgotten how to breathe. When their eyes meet again, they lock.

"I was never far away," he answers her question that isn't really talking about earlier in the morning.

"Duncan…" she begins.

"To hell with him," he says, without any rancor. He leans on the bedrail, drinking her in.

"He's your best friend… 'bros before hos', don'tcha know the code?" She flaps the elbow on her uninjured side, as if jabbing someone in the ribs.

"Of course I know the code. Already broke it once." One side of his mouth tips upward, and he waggles his eyebrows at her. "Sort of feel like shattering it all to hell, once and for all." She is smiling at his antics, but the grin fades away when she sees the seriousness he knows is on his face.

"He's your _best_ friend." Her voice is fainter now, sounds more desperate. "I'm – I'm just – "

"Veronica," he hushes her with a whisper of her name. "You're _everything._"

She sucks in a gasp of air, and the sound of it shoots straight through him like an electric current. _God_, what is she doing to him? Before he can think himself out of it, he leans over the bedrail, and presses a kiss to her startled mouth. And when her lips yield pliantly under his, he knows he is lost.

**TBC**


	4. x, xi

**Used To Be**

_**x. so certain where it would take us; so sure that we were never lost.**_

He is falling into her, he thinks. Surrounded and engulfed and subsumed, and utterly, utterly lost. It does not bother him nearly as much as it ought to, he concludes. But then, it has been a long time coming. Ever since he felt her slender arms encircle him while he cried for his mother, allowing himself comfort from her witness, rather than shame. Ever since he broke about a dozen traffic laws on his way to the Camelot, ever since that first tentative touch of her lips to his drove any thought of who they used to be out of his head. Ever since he followed his heart, not his head, not his reputation, not his 09er friends, not his inner jackass, and _kissed her back_.

Now, she is kissing him back.

He doesn't recall how he ever functioned without her. He is a damned fool for not giving up everything – his pride, his war – to be with her in the first place.

Dimly, he feels the unyielding presence of the bed rail in his palm, the ache in his injured arm from hunching over, the vague but persistent fatigue. He tries to remember that she is recovering from serious injury, but she is _kissing him back_, and he knows he would let it go on forever and consider himself content.

So the soft _snick_ of the door opening is, to put it mildly, unwelcome.

He forcibly removes his lips from Veronica's, and swears that he can hear every vertebrae in his back pop when he abruptly straightens up. He doesn't bother trying to look guilty; in fact, he is pretty sure he is flushed with something akin to triumph – but Veronica's hand is twitching ineffectually at the sheet, with what ultimate goal he is unsure… to pull it all the way over her head?

"Damn, son!" Wallace says, a mixture of admiration and disgust in his voice, as he stretches the first word out into two syllables – _dayam_. His eyes cut across and down to Veronica. She flutters her hand up near her face, as if to wipe her mouth, and then darts a glance up at Logan.

Logan isn't sure what he'll see there. _Shuttered_ has never been an adequate enough word to describe Veronica when she is closed off. She has "building emotional barricades" down to a science, or an art form… or hell, maybe both. But her eyes are soft, reminiscing, _vulnerable_. Her cheeks have heightened color, and her mouth is almost trembling.

Faint hope begins to stain the horizons of Logan's soul. This decidedly does _not_ look like the front end of a summary dismissal.

"What is it, Wallace?" Veronica sounds mostly normal. Logan isn't sure he'd be able to tell whether or not she was flustered at all, were it not for the shy, skittery glances she keeps shooting him.

Wallace is looking at Logan too, and keeps shaking his head in a way that Logan would almost find insulting if he wasn't preoccupied by replaying the kiss in his head.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure we been down this road already, Veronica!" Wallace's tone is that of a child who has just found out his mother is taking him to the dentist instead of the toy store.

"This isn't what it – " Veronica begins, and Logan shoots her a look of vaguely bewildered amazement.

"This is _exactly_ what it looks like," he tells Wallace in no uncertain terms. His heart is thudding in his chest, and he wants desperately to take her hand and lace his fingers through hers, but he refrains.

"And what're you gonna do about Duncan?" Wallace has apparently decided to ignore Logan from this point out.

"I haven't decided I'm going to _do_ anything!" Veronica's voice is heated and defensive, and she flings an irritated look at Logan.

_And here comes the portcullis, _he thinks. He can practically hear the chains clanking together. Any second now, and the barrier will be sealed impenetrably, and he'll be left standing on the outside, remembering what it used to be like to kiss her, to be allowed to love her.

"No," he says suddenly, an almost-_non sequitur_ that makes both Veronica and Wallace look at him oddly. "No, no, no, no, Veronica. Veronica, look at me." He shifts as if he is going to lean on her hospital bed, to bracket her with his arms, to fill her field of vision until she can see nothing but him. But he doesn't have the use of both arms, so he lowers the bed rail clumsily – it makes a terrible racket – and sits on the edge of the bed, his hip just adjacent to her knee. The whole time he is arranging himself, he has the sick, panicked sensation of sand sifting through an hourglass, faster than he could ever hope to save it. "Just hold on, Veronica, hold on and look at me, I want you to look at me." The sound is pouring over all of them meaninglessly, more sand flowing away.

"C'mon, Logan, why don't you – " Wallace's voice is not without sympathy.

"Shut up, Fennel!" The words are caustic, but Logan's tone is not. Wallace rolls his eyes skyward with a dramatic sigh, and subsides. Logan scoops up the hand on Veronica's uninjured side with his own.

"Listen, Veronica, please don't. Please don't just – don't just throw this away."

"_I_ wasn't the one who threw it away, Logan. That was you!"

"You're right! You're right, and it was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made. If I could rewind everything and make a different choice, I would!" His voice softens, and he skids the pad of his thumb back and forth across the ridges of her knuckles. "I_ would_," he repeats. "But you must think it was a mistake too… or you wouldn't have kissed me like that."

"Chemistry was never one of our problems." She reluctantly admits her thought from the night before.

"Then, why can't it be part of the solution?" He can't help a smirk. She slants a look at him that says, _Really?_

"Until the next time you decide that someone's done you wrong? Until you decide to go back into agent-of-destruction, let-the-world-burn mode?"

"Yeah, you don't know _anything _about that kind of reasoning, do you?" He retorts, and enjoys the flush rising in her face. "Look, I'm sitting here telling you it was a mistake. Escalating the feud with the PCHers was a mistake. Letting you go was a mistake. I've had to live with the way things are now, with the full knowledge of what was gone. I've had to watch Duncan with everything I ever wanted – smug bastard. And I _had _it and I threw it away! I had a front row seat to your shooting; I was kneeling in your _blood …_ thinking I was going to lose you forever. I love you, Veronica," he bites off the words, and her eyes fly up to his, startled. He nods at her surprise, and one corner of his mouth quirks upward. "You heard me. I love you. I've never stopped loving you. And I don't think you've ever stopped loving me either." He makes a move to hold her hand with both of his, and winces with the movement.

"Isn't that supposed to be in a sling?" She asks dryly. He shoots her a look, but doesn't respond to the query.

"Don't you – " He begins, hesitates, and then attempts to collect his thoughts, shaking his head at himself. He darts one look at Wallace, unsure how much to say, but then decides that he doesn't give a damn. "Don't you think that – that maybe everything that's happened to us, with Lilly, with Duncan, with your mom, my mom – even – even… Dad…" he almost whispers the word, " – don't you ever wonder if it – it wasn't part of – of something bigger… like we wouldn't even be who we are, wanting each other…_loving _each other, if those things hadn't happened… that we're meant to keep on finding each other, no matter what conspires to keep us apart…" His voice drops to almost inaudible at the last couple of phrases, and he can feel heat climbing into his face. He doesn't dare look at Wallace again.

"So, you're saying we're a saga…?" Veronica's voice is wry, but there's something softer in her eyes.

"An epic one," he says sincerely, and then cracks a grin. "Cut me some slack, Mars. I'm composing on the fly here."

She snags her bottom lip between her teeth, and appears to be trying with all her might to squelch a smile. He wants to kiss her again worse than he wants to draw his next breath.

"Logan…" It is a hitched whisper, half-protest, half-placation, escaping her of its own volition. Her lashes are dark brushstrokes on her cheeks. She looks like she is going to say no, even though she wants to say yes. He leans forward, pressing his advantage.

"Please," The plaintive word surprises him. "I'm asking you to give us a second chance. I know it won't be perfect. I know I'll find all new ways to make mistakes – "

"Way to aim high!" She interjects, pumping her fist in the air in a mock cheerleader pose. A slight crimp of his mouth is his only acknowledgment of her humor; he barrels ahead, isn't sure if he could stop now, even if he thought better of everything he was saying.

" – but you never ever have to doubt how much I love you, Veronica. I didn't – I didn't know it could feel like this… I didn't know _I_ could feel like this. Veronica, please…" He has edged forward with every entreaty, and they are practically breathing each other's air. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he is still in that hallway, and longing and fear and desperation threaten to choke him.

"I – " Veronica starts, her lips barely brushing his. She takes a deep breath. "I have to talk to Duncan first."

It's like a dash of cold water thrown on him, and he backs away without the impending kiss, struggling for equilibrium.

"That's not a no," he manages to say, clearing his throat and forcing a too-cheerful smile, even though he is inwardly mostly elated.

"Just when I think you can't set the bar _any_ lower," Wallace's chagrin is clearly meant to be overheard.

"Hey, that way you're never disappointed," Logan points out seriously. Wallace commiserates with the ceiling tiles once again.

"I know _some_body who's gonna be _real_ disappointed," he mutters. Logan's jovial manner dissipates somewhat. It is what Veronica was trying to tell him. It's what he knows already. Duncan Kane _is_ his best friend. They have thus far tried to keep Veronica a non-issue between them, but she has never been actively pursued by one of them while in a relationship with the other. _That's going to change now_, he thinks, and manages to dredge up a little guilt.

"You should talk to him," Logan concedes, surprising himself a bit. "I don't want you to do anything you'll be sorry for later."

"Well, I hate to break it to ya, but it is _way_ too late for that," she half-jokes.

"No regrets," he says, and he isn't sure if it's a statement of fact or a promise for later. "Not about us. But… when you talk to him, don't forget what I said, okay? Don't forget the way this makes you feel…" He kisses her, a short but emphatic caress; his good hand goes to the nape of her neck, his fingers thread in her hair.

"My my," she drawls snarkily. "We are awfully sure of ourselves, aren't we?" Even though she was clearly not unaffected by the kiss, she shoots an arch glance at him, waiting for his rejoinder. Instead, he lets his face be as nakedly sincere as possible.

"Not at all," he admits. Something flickers in her face, and then she is kissing him again, pushing herself into a more upright position toward him, until – afraid she is going to hurt herself – he cradles her with the arm that is already around her, and gently lowers her back to her inclined mattress. When they break the kiss, he presses his forehead to hers, and they both try to regulate their breathing.

There is a perfunctory knock on the door, and someone comes in without waiting for any kind of response. Logan straightens up so quickly that he nearly falls off the bed, and when he rights himself, he is looking at the twin no-nonsense gazes of the Sheriff's deputy and Veronica's father. _Well, hell…_

"Damn it," says Wallace cheerily, not sounding sorry at all. "I knew I was supposed to tell you something."

* * *

_**xi. it takes the shape of who will save us.**_

Deputy Sacks wants their statements taken separately because: of course he does. Logan desperately wants to be an asshole, but something about the look on Mr. Mars' face stops him. He decides that if he plays nice, he can get back to Veronica that much more quickly. He even manages to parlay his politeness into convincing the deputy to commandeer some hospital executive's office in which to question him, rather than going to the station.

His good humor lasts until he realizes that they are trying to make sure that _he _wasn't the one who shot Veronica, and that propels him straight past angry and right toward livid. He gives his statement in short, choppy sentences, grateful that his ire has made him less likely to break down in front of this tool.

"Haven't you even talked any of your esteemed colleagues? They've got the gun I had. It wasn't even loaded."

"It was suggested by a witness in the bar that you might have done it. You and Veronica weren't dating anymore, were you? Sounds like you weren't too happy about that…"

"She wouldn't go out with me, so I shot her?" The heavy sarcasm mixed with fury makes Logan's voice crack. "You know how much tail I could get if I so chose, right?"

"Yes, and I also know that people don't say 'no' to Logan Echolls, do they? But Miss Mars did. How did that make you feel?"

Logan is _this_ close to hurling the executive's shiny, multi-line telephone at the nearest wall.

"It made me feel like shit; how do you think it made me feel?" he answers bitterly. "Are you a cop or a shrink? 'Cause I gotta say you kinda suck at both. Especially if you think that a bar crawling with Fitzpatricks is going to yield you any sort of reliable witness. But apparently they'll just give any moron a badge these days."

The deputy's mustache twitches, and Logan belatedly remembers that he was going to be _not_-an-asshole. Damn it all, he's already on the hook for _one_ crime. Now they'll probably have him on speed dial just in case the odd corpse should turn up. Feeling somewhat defeated and suddenly tired of being contrary, he drops his forehead to the edge of the executives mahogany desk with a dull thunk. There is ponderous silence for a good long while, and finally, Logan looks up.

"Look, Inspector Clouseau, my time is at a premium. Do I need a lawyer or what?"

Something akin to sympathy appears to glint in Deputy Sacks' eyes for an instant, but it is gone so quickly – and would be so unlikely to boot – that Logan reckons he must have imagined it.

"Sit tight, Mr. Echolls. D'Amato's getting Veronica's statement. If it checks out, you'll be free to go." Sacks is moving towards the door. It takes Logan a beat to figure out who D'Amato is.

"Oh, of course, Deputy _Leo_ would be talking to Veronica. How many other officers did he knock down in his haste to get that assignment?" he says, his voice dripping with disdain. "You tell him he better keep his 'gun' to _himself!" _ He raises his volume to a shout on the last word, as Sacks exits the office, stoically ignoring him.

Logan is at the door almost before it closes, planning to vacate the premises mostly just because Sacks told him to stay put. Before he can pivot around the door frame into the hallway, he is brought up short by the presence of Mr. Mars.

"Are they done talking to Veronica?" he blurts. Mr. Mars levels him with a look that makes Logan distinctly aware that he is not very high on the man's List of Favorite People Ever.

"Yes, D'Amato got her statement. I'd go ahead and _wait_ for the deputy's permission – " The emphasis in his tone clarifies that he knows Logan was about to make a break for it. " – but you should be free to go." He sounds annoyed, and Logan shoots him a cheeky grin.

"Are you disappointed that Veronica didn't implicate me in her shooting? Can't lock me _under_ the jail, conveniently misplace the key…"

Mr. Mars arches an eyebrow at him. "If I thought you had anything to do with it, you wouldn't still be conscious. Neither does your innocence in this case change my opinion of you in general."

It would be so easy, _so easy_, to flip him off and stalk down the hallway, with a parting rejoinder and some well-placed profanity, to leave the hospital, tuck himself away at the Grand, and drink himself blind. But he thinks of Veronica, of the way she kissed him, the way she looked at him, the way she said his name.

"Mr. Mars, I'm in love with your daughter," he says in a rush, and then sort of blinks at himself, surprised. That had not been _at all_ what he had planned to say. Veronica's father almost smiles.

"This is not news, Logan."

"I – no, I meant – I just mean that I – " He ducks his head, shoving one hand into his pocket. "I know that what I did over the summer, the way I acted… I know that that's why I lost her. I _know_ that now, and I'm – I'm not willing to lose her again. She's too important to me. And if – if getting to – if the privilege of loving her and – and having her love me in return means that I have to be… better… then I'm willing to do that… sir." Restraining a reflexive wince, he forces himself to look up and meet the older man's gaze, holding it as Mr. Mars clearly takes his measure.

"No drugs," the PI finally barks. "No taking matters into your own hands with violence or property damage." Logan is nodding after every directive. "You shouldn't be drinking at all, but if I ever hear of you drunk behind the wheel of a car, or so drunk that you hurt Veronica, then I swear to God – "

"Mr. Mars, I would _never_…" He wonders briefly exactly how whipped, on a scale of one to Jake Kane, he is, or what his cronies at school would say if they could hear him now. But he doesn't really care, because his heart is thundering and he can feel _her_ pulsing through his veins. He is talking to her father, and getting at least his permission, if not his approval, and she said she would talk to Duncan… He feels as if his skin is not going to be able to contain the consuming feelings of _Veronica-and-Logan_ that are surging through him. "All I want to do is protect her, you know." He remembers saying something similar to Veronica last year, not too long before she was nearly killed by the twisted donor of half his genetic material. _That's the opposite of encouraging on about six different levels, _he thinks with a sigh. "But I – sometimes it – " He is not sure how to complete his thought: _her fearlessness is part of what I love about her? I don't ever want to make her feel small or useless? …_even a whiny, but true _sometimes she won't let me help her?_

Keith Mars looks like he can relate completely to what Logan is failing to say, perhaps in spite of himself.

"I know Veronica can be… challenging," he says. "Some of that is probably even my fault." He shoots a look at Logan that warns him against agreeing. "Just don't deliberately put her in danger. Protect her where you can." He sighs. "I can't believe I'm even doing this. If she hadn't – " He doesn't complete his sentence even though Logan would dearly love to know how Veronica advocated on his behalf.

"Veronica has always been pretty stellar at getting what she wants, sir," Logan points out. Mr. Mars throws a dour look at him that clearly says, _Yeah, but what she wants this time is _you_. _Logan cannot help the sincerely cheeky grin that spreads across his face. "She always gets her man, always comes out on – "

"Don't," Mr. Mars orders, pointing a finger at him. Belatedly, Logan realizes that this time, she very nearly _hadn't_. The silty shame that had temporarily settled beneath the euphoria that Veronica loved him floats back to the forefront of his mind.

"I'm sorry, sir," he says, toeing at the linoleum, as Veronica's father turns to go. Mr. Mars waves it off with one hand, without looking back. Logan is left alone in the hallway, half-in and half-out of an administrative office, wondering what in the hell is taking the deputy so long. "Crime-fighting masterminds, these," he snorts to himself. He wonders if Veronica has talked to Duncan yet.

His attention is suddenly caught by the sound of someone coming – more than one someone, and not the strides of the mustachioed officer of the law either. He retreats back into the office, but leaves the door open.

Wallace and Mac are almost past him before they react to his presence just inside the doorway.

"There you are!" Wallace says unnecessarily. Logan swipes his hand up and across in a perfunctory wave.

"Here I am," he sing-songs mockingly. "So, didja come to tell me my good name has been restored?"

"What miracle worker got saddled with that impossible task?" Mac snarks in a mumbling monotone.

"I certainly hope it isn't whoever's in charge of your hair," he retorts, feeling stung. Wallace holds both hands up, as Mac opens her mouth again.

"Ah-ah-ah. We ain't got time for this." He flings an irritated look at Logan. "Why you always gotta be looking for a fight?" Then, to Mac, "_Don't_ encourage him."

"Well, if you haven't come to tell me that Neptune's finest actually _can _find their collective asses with both hands, and do hereby acknowledge that I did _not_ shoot Veronica, then why else were you looking for me?"

Wallace and Mac exchange somewhat wary glances, and his tension escalates rapidly. These are not the glances of two people with a _good_ surprise.

"Is everything – ? Is Veronica all right? She didn't – "

"Veronica's fine," Wallace says casually. "It's – actually, it's about Duncan… um, we think."

"Duncan? What's wrong with Duncan? Did she talk to him?"

"We followed him," Mac blurts suddenly. "He's been slinking off – "

" – to see Meg, yeah, I know," Logan finishes for her, rolling his eyes.

"And since you… and Veronica… are on _such_ good terms now… well…" Wallace leans his head back in the direction of Veronica's hospital room, looking put out that he is even in this situation in the first place. "We wondered if maybe Duncan isn't as hung up on Veronica as everyone _thinks_ he is."

"Meg's in a _coma_," Logan reminds them. "I _really _don't think Duncan would try to tap that, do you?"

"Gross!" Mac screws her face up in a grimace. "And not even close to what we meant, thank you, Pervy McCreeperson."

"Well, he did tap that, one time… at least," Wallace interjects sagely, shrugging. "We know that for sure."

Logan freezes, a creeping dread stealing over him.

"What are you saying?" he asks, even as he becomes pretty positive he knows. "That the Sainted Meg Manning is – "

"Great with child?" Mac fills in, tacking on a nod of affirmation. "It has to be from back when they were dating."

"Really, Sherlock, you think so?" The invective tumbles from Logan's mouth without thought, without much malice. His own mind is whirling, trying to grasp this latest complication in their ridiculous soap opera. Here was his _in_ with Veronica; surely she wouldn't be angling to stay with Duncan now, even if she had been contemplating it earlier. At the same time, he is thinking of Duncan, of how torn and trapped he must feel. He wonders how long Duncan has known? Not long surely; he wouldn't have been dating Veronica, if he had, of that Logan has no doubt. _Noble ass._

"Does Duncan know you know?" he asks. Mac and Wallace both shake their heads in the negative.

"Does Veronica know?"

"We came to find you first," Mac answers.

_We came to find you first_. He is pretty sure that they don't mean it as much of a compliment. At least, not as much of one as he is making it out to be. He quickly decides that he doesn't care.

"Well," he says, looking over the two unlikeliest compadres he could imagine himself enacting any sort of plans with. "What do you think we should do?"

**TBC**


	5. xii, xiii

**Used To Be**

_**xii. when it leaves , it's hard to know**_

Logan reluctantly makes his way back to Veronica's room. He has been released by the Sheriff's Department, cleared of any suspicion, and is unscathed, other than having to endure a painfully awkward, finger-wagging, _be careful around scary guns_ lecture by the deputy. They had assured him that the (empty) gun would be promptly returned to its rightful owner, Mr. Richard Casablancas, Senior. He theatrically rolls his eyes now that he is at liberty to do so; he couldn't care less what Big Dick does with his gun. Part of him continues to agonize over whether or not he had made the right choice to bring that gun into the River Styx, whether he had made things worse or better. It is a still-raw wound that he cannot refrain from picking at.

He dallies in the corridor. Veronica's friends mean well, but in this instance, they are worse than useless. Even though he had tried to explain that Veronica has only just decided that she even _likes_ him again, and that he desperately does not want her to shoot the messenger (which is a terrible, _terrible_ expression to use at this particular point in time), _they_ had concluded that he is the best one to deliver the News about Duncan, Meg, and their impending progeny. What he would really like to do is clock Duncan a good one, right in the kisser. What he would like even more is to let Veronica do it. As pleasurable as it would be to throw Duncan under the bus (oh, _God_, he is never going to be able to use a cliché again), he does not want that to alter Veronica's decision. He doesn't want Veronica to choose him because Duncan betrayed her; he wants Veronica to choose him because she can't imagine life without him.

_I might as well buy a pint of Chunky Monkey for my pathetic ass and start watching Lifetime movies right now._ _Is it actually possible to nauseate yourself?_

He sighs, and moves toward the door. _If this backfires on me, I'm going to make Fennel's flagpole-tape job look like a kindergarten hazing. _He is reaching for the door, when it suddenly flies outward. He stumbles backward, swearing, and looks into the face of Duncan Kane. Another invective tumbles from his lips, and there is a painful pause.

"Hiya, Dunc," he finally says. "How's it goin'?" The words are right, but he can't quite muster up the tone of cheesy joviality that he is going for. Duncan blinks at him, looking dazed, and he continues, all big eyes and faux-ignorance. "Bad day? Wanna talk about it?"

"Veronica – " Duncan manages with difficulty. "Veronica broke up with me."

Logan bites down on the corners of his lips to keep the joy off of his face. _Burn in hell, bro code_, he thinks. "What – um – what did she say, man?" There is such a soaring sensation inside of him that he checks to make sure his feet are still on the floor. _Shoes. Nasty hospital linoleum._ _Yup._

"Don't pretend you care!"

Logan's laugh is breathy. "Oh, I'll have you know I care very much."

"I know exactly how much you care. I meant, don't pretend you care about how _I _feel."

"I _do_ care how you feel." _Just not enough to give up Veronica. Not this time. _Duncan scoffs.

"Whatever."

"So, um…" Logan shoves his hands in his pockets, toes at the floor. "What'd she say?"

"It figures that you'd want to rub my nose in it," Duncan says stonily. Logan reflects that maybe he does.

"I'm willing to concede that I was responsible for the demise of my relationship with Veronica," he says. "But you sure were Johnny-on-the-spot to pick up the pieces, Prince Charming." He _tsks_ at his erstwhile best friend, and thumbs imaginary suspenders. "Maybe I've learned from the best."

"_I_ haven't torpedoed anything," Duncan protests Logan's parallel.

"Haven't you?" Logan bites off. He is letting too much dangerous emotion flicker into his face. "Didja tell her about the bundle of joy?"

Duncan looks suitably horrified.

"How the hell did you find out about that?"

Logan cocks his head, and observes Duncan from the new angle. "Translation: no," he declares, rocking back on his heels. "Regretfully, I must inform you that I have been given the arduous task of informing Veronica about said conveniently forgotten details. Her sidekicks have duly appointed me – " He sketches a jaunty little bow, complete with hand flourish. " – and here I am to answer the call."

"Because you're just that noble. C'mon, Logan, it's done. She's dumped me! I know that's what you wanted. Now you can have her back. What's the point of dragging my skeletons into the light of day?"

Logan is mildly offended. "She's not a trading card, man. Besides, if it weren't for the strangely – dare I say it? – fortuitous circumstances of the bus crash and the subsequent intervention of the coma-gods, your skeleton would already be flaunting its ass to everyone you know. Or did you think that Meg could stroll down the hallowed halls of Neptune High, eight months pregnant, and no one would notice? Especially not your private. Detective. Girlfriend?"

"But the bus _did_ crash, Logan. Meg _is_ in a coma. I hope to God she wakes up, but even if she doesn't… what's the point of hurting Veronica even more? Don't you think she's been through enough?"

Logan flinches as though belt leather has just made contact with flesh.

"Don't try to twist this back around on me. I've acknowledged my level of culpability as far as I'm going to. If you think I'm going to withhold information from her, information that she is eventually _going_ to find out – and then find out that I knew and said nothing... Hiding it from her now is not going to prevent her from finding out sooner or later – my bet's on sooner – and it _will_ be my ass if I keep this a secret. Sorry, Donut, but I'm not willing to fall on this grenade."

Duncan looks like he wants to protest, but instead wheels quickly on one heel as if to depart, "So, you're going to tell her then. Well, I'll – " He is cut off as Logan catches him by the shirt collar and hauls him back toward the door.

"I _was_ going to tell her. But now I don't have to, because _you_ can. And I'll be right beside you… watching you sing." He smiles brightly.

"Why should I make this easier on you?"

"Why should _I _make this easier on _you_?"

They eye each other for a moment. Before the last couple of years had happened, Logan would have sworn that Duncan would never take the easy way out, the cowardly way that showed more regard for one's own comfort than someone else's. Logan would have told the world to go to hell and spared no tears for it. But before Lilly, before his shunning of Veronica, Logan would never have ascribed his own motives to Duncan. Now, he is not as sure as he once would have been, but he stands, casually blocking most of Duncan's access to the corridor, and waits.

When Duncan sighs and says "Fine!" like a sulky six-year-old, Logan cannot help the grin that spreads over his face. He claps his hand down around the door handle, and swings it open theatrically, with a magnanimous gesture for Duncan to precede him.

Veronica sees Duncan first, and Logan hears her sigh, "Duncan…" before she catches sight of him. Her eyes dart back and forth between the two.

"What's going on?" It is her _don't bullshit me_ voice.

"Duncan had something else to tell you… something that just happened to slip his mind." The sing-song tone of Logan's voice makes it clear that it did no such thing. Veronica slants a probing glance at him, and then interlaces her fingers in her lap, directing her attention to Duncan and blinking at him expectantly.

_It's the moment of truth, Big D, _Logan thinks, somewhat surprised at his amount of vindictive glee. Duncan _is_ his best friend, and he hopes that somehow, at some point, they'll be able to get past this… but _this _kind of secret, _this _kind of selfishness, when Duncan's signature move has been his ability to seem so much more high-road than Logan, and to make sure that Veronica knows it? Logan has felt his loyalty draining away rapidly since Wallace and Mac lobbed him this bomb.

"Meg is pregnant," Duncan blurts all at once. He isn't looking at Veronica, but Logan is and he sees the way her mouth drops open in shock._ Speaking of bombs,_ Logan thinks.

"W – what? You – you – you cheated on me? After – after all the – "

"No, no, no!" Duncan hastens to clarify. "It was – it was before we got together. She didn't tell me. I didn't know, Veronica, I swear to you."

"If it was before, then that means…"

"Yeah… she's – she's due really soon."

Veronica's eyes turn sad and introspective. "No wonder she hated me."

"She didn't hate you," Duncan mumbles, but it fools nobody in the room. Logan wonders if anyone has noticed that half the time they are talking about Meg in the past tense. He wonders what will happen to Meg, what will happen to Duncan's baby.

"Yeah, she did. I would hate me too. And _you!_" Veronica seems to suddenly come back to herself. "You sleep with Meg, dump her, and then come waiting around for my relationship with Logan to crash and burn?"

_Atta girl, _Logan grins inwardly. _Go for the jugular._

"You already showed me the door, Veronica!" Duncan says, something like angry desperation in his voice. "You already chose _him_!" He slings one arm back in Logan's general direction. "What does this really change?"

"Is _that_ what she said?" Logan asks Duncan, his interest perked back up, belatedly remembering that Duncan had never answered his question about what his conversation with Veronica entailed.

"Shut up, Logan!" Veronica and Duncan say in unison.

"Tell me what this changes," he insists again.

"It changes the way I look at you," she says, her eyes ineffably sad. Her gaze drifts over to Logan who is slouched with one hip against the wall, angled towards her, watching her with that upward-tilted glance that he prays is not nakedly hopeful. Duncan follows the direction of her stare.

"No," he concludes. "The way you look at me changed because the way you look at _him_ changed." Her eyes flicker back toward Duncan for a moment, but it's as if she cannot tear them away from Logan for long. She does not deny the veracity in Duncan's statement. Logan straightens from his position propping up the wall. He only shifts toward her a matter of inches, but it's as if someone has jacked the heat in the room up to 'stifling'.

Neither of them even notices Duncan leave.

* * *

_**xiii. but i will not let you go.**_

Logan is sidling toward her, impossibly slowly, because he doesn't quite know what he's going to say. He just knows that this feels momentous, like a clash of continents or kings… or something else suitably epic. Veronica's eyes are locked with his.

"I find the timing of your arrival both suspicious and convenient. Suspiciously convenient, even," she says in an absent way.

"Suspiciously convenient with what? Your throwing Duncan out on his ass?" He smirks, but he knows that it is softened by the way he threads his fingers into her hair and brushes it back from her face, as he reaches her side.

"Figuratively," she interjects, and he concedes.

"Figuratively. Nah," he answers his own question, grinning lightly at her, and rocking forward and back on his toes. "That was just providence."

"You enjoyed it."

"Yes, I did. You would have too, if the situation were reversed." He spears her with a look that is both direct and sincere, and has the distinct pleasure of watching her flush. She would have enjoyed it, and they both know it.

"You knew?" A question, but not really. He holds up both hands in a surrendering gesture.

"As of … fifteen minutes ago, tops. Fennel and Mumbles-the-Hacker junior-sleuthed it out."

"Meaning…"

"Meaning they followed Duncan up to Meg's room and used their eyes." She shoots him a dirty look, because the eye-roll in his voice is obvious.

"Oh." It is a soft, lonely syllable, dropping from between her lips, forlorn and almost unnoticed. Her eyes are distant, and he wonders if she is seeing a pale, frail golden cheerleader, prone in a hospital bed, her stomach swollen with Duncan's child, _Duncan's child_.

"Are you okay? Veronica?" Something tightens in his chest, and he knows a sudden pang of fear, like the irrational wave of anxiety when one is the first to arrive at a party: _it's the wrong night _or _the wrong house._

_What if I've misread this entire situation?_

Veronica flicks her eyes up at him, and seems to read everything displayed there in a fraction of a second.

"I'm not having second thoughts, Logan," she murmurs quietly. Before he can even clamp down on the traitorous smile of overwhelming relief that threatens to tremble across his mouth, she has added, teasingly, "I was already up to seventeenth or eighteenth thoughts, _way_ back, probably even before the trip to Catalina Island – "

"—that-wasn't," he tags on, bitterly remembering the tang of the champagne, consumed alone on his father's boat, wondering how he could've have gotten everything so wrong. _Wrong night, wrong house… wrong girl?_

_No_. If there is one thing that he can bank on, stake his life on, it is that Veronica is the _right_ girl. The _only _girl. If only they can get past this cycle of distrust brought on by their mutual abandonment issues.

He winds his hand around hers.

"Are we crazy?" He asks, mostly rhetorically. She gives him an _are you freakin' kidding me? _look, and he kisses the side of her head.

"You said you love me." It isn't really a question, but he nods in response, keeping his gaze unwaveringly on hers. If she ever believes _anything_ he has to say, he wants her to believe this.

"You didn't say it back." He thinks that he really can't help pointing this out.

"I didn't."

"Because you don't?" Logan can feel his pulse hammering through his ear drums. It feels as if the rest of his life hinges on what she says next. And it's ridiculous. Because he knows she loves him. Whether or not she can admit it to him, to herself, to anyone, he _knows_.

But he really wishes she would say it, all the same.

"I… tried not to," she struggles, shifting her shoulders with a wince, and dragging her eyes reluctantly up to his. "But I couldn't help it."

"And – " He hesitates, swallows, _has_ to know. "—if Duncan hadn't knocked up Our Blessed Mother?"

Her mouth crimps; her eyes are glossy with unspilled tears.

"Logan…" _Lo-gan_. His heart stutters a beat, before resuming normal rhythm. His name is a broken sigh, but the tone of it gives him pause. It is not a terrified plea, not a sympathetic apology. More like a surrender. "It was always you. I … always knew that we'd … find our way back someday."

The sudden onslaught of utter joy is making him dizzy. So he drinks her in with his eyes, falls back on the bedrock of their relationship, as one corner of his mouth tilts upward.

"_You_ always knew, Mars? Miss-Head-for-the-hills!-Somebody-said-Commitment? Where _have_ I put my skeptical face?"

"You better watch yerself, Mister!" She smiles, using a Western twang. "You got plenty of places I could stash a bong, and I got the law on speed dial."

"You always know just what to say to me," he simpers, one hand theatrically over his heart. "This is how all the great love stories start, isn't it?" He is only a little bit serious, and she side-eyes him skeptically.

"What movies have _you_ been watching?"

"Just admit it," he says softly, ignoring the twinge in his elbow joint to skid his thumb over her cheekbone. "I'm growing on you."

"Yeah…" she says. "Like a fungus." She scrunches up her nose adorably, and her teeth catch her lip on the _f_ . The laugh that tumbles from his mouth is both unexpected and genuine, and he has the distinct pleasure of seeing her eyes literally sparkle.

"Please say you mean it," he blurts, without really meaning to. Begging for things has never really been his style, his tending toward more of a _Death First!_ attitude, but now he has done it twice in one day. _With witnesses_, he thinks of Fennel with chagrin. "I meant everything I said earlier. Every word. This –_you_ \- this is it for me, Veronica. Whatever we used to be, whatever – this shit with the Fitzpatricks… the witness on the bridge – we're better together. I don't want to go back to the way it was before. I _won't_ go back."

"Well," she says in a tone of mock-reluctant concession. "I don't know where else I am going to find myself a rich and scandalous scoundrel for a boy-toy… so I guess you'll do." She winds her hand into his collar, and pulls him down for a kiss.

"I'll have you know I'm the cream of the crop," he mumbles into her mouth. "One might even say – "

" – the prick of the litter?"

He is wincing theatrically at her wordplay, even as the grin spills across his face.

"It needs work, Mars."

"What if I said I loved you?" The words tumble quickly out of her mouth, and his gaze jerks up to lock on hers with what he thinks ought to be an audible snap.

"Hypotheticals don't count," he points out over the roaring in his ears. She takes a long pull of air into her lungs, and her eyes do not leave his.

"I love you, Logan." Her face is somehow fearful and hopeful and vulnerable and trusting all at the same time. He knows – better than anybody, he thinks – how much it costs her to let someone in, to take off the mask, to reveal actual feelings… and while the fact that she loves him isn't surprising, _how much_ she must love him takes his breath away. "So… would that get me a venue? My name in lights?"

"Come on, you know it's called _sleeping_ your way to the top for a reason."

"I don't think the doctor's cleared me for that yet."

"Words every guy wants to hear."

"I meant them, Logan." She grows serious again, something she seems able to do on a dime, and he knows she is talking about _those _words, not the ones most recently out of her mouth.

"I know." Her eyes are limpid, but he sees a grin begin to twist her mouth, almost of its own volition, and he rushes to speak again, before she can tease that he has _Star Wars'd_ their romantic moment. "I love you too."

"Quoting movies… repeating yourself… do you have any original moves, Echolls?"

"Give me a break, okay? You made me say a whole bunch of highly personal stuff in front of the Boy Wonder. That gives me carte blanche to steal Han Solo's material any time I so choose."

"Yeah…" she winces. "Poor Wallace. Mommy and Daddy may have scarred him for life."

"Poor _Wallace_? _ I_ was the one pouring my heart out to you!"

"Well, shame on me for believing what's written in the girl's bathroom stall – Logan Echolls, you mean to tell me you have a _heart_?"

"Not since I gave it to you." It's not a fantastic line, as lines go, he thinks later. But it tumbles out without forethought, and his blush and uncalculated sincerity are more than enough to make her believe him. She does believe him; he can tell by the shine in her eyes and the astonished look on her face. The resulting smile she gives him is so loving that he is filled with a heady joy, exquisite and almost painful in its intensity.

She kisses him again, her hand no longer grasping his shirt, but moving up to the nape of his neck to splay in his hair. She is pulling him to her, and he wants to… wants to more than he wants to breathe again, but she is injured and (he can't quite forget) it was because of him. So he withdraws a bit, and she makes a funny little whine of disappointment as they're gasping each other's air.

"I see you aren't insulting my material now, Mars…" he whispers.

"Silver tongue like that'll getcha anything you want, cowboy," she breathes back in the Western twang again. They stare at each other for a long moment, as Logan arches his brows at her innuendo. Finally, she snorts and he chuckles, and then they are laughing and kissing at the same time. He is trying to be gentle, but he is a little afraid that the euphoria surging through him right then might actually split him apart.

He had told her she was it for him. She had told him that she loved him. He wants to remember everything about this moment: this moment when Logan Echolls, who had never really had any reason to hope that life might work out his way, is literally holding his future in his arms. _Well, one arm, really_, he corrects himself.

He thinks about years into the future, what he will say when people ask them their story, how he can even put into words something so epic in scope, something so amazing and miraculous and beautiful.

_A long time ago, we used to be friends…_

**_The End_**

**_AN: _**Many apologies for the long wait. This story did not want to cooperate, but I finally managed to get words on a screen! Hope you enjoyed!


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